


In the Embrace of Hades

by natcat5



Series: Atlas ficlets [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Derek Hale Character Study, Derek-centric, Gen, Hale Family OCs - Freeform, Non-Chronological
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-13
Updated: 2014-08-13
Packaged: 2018-02-12 23:13:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2128029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natcat5/pseuds/natcat5
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laura was the oldest, the Alpha, being groomed by their mother, adored by their father. The twins were the youngest, doe-eyed and easily doted on. Cora, mischievous in a way that could make anyone smile. Erik, gentle and human, breakable and smothered with love and protection as a result. They were cherished, spoiled, hard to say no to. And Derek was the middle child, not an Alpha, and not the beloved youngest. He was average, and it wasn’t terrible, but it did mean that he tended to get overlooked. </p><p>This was never a problem until it was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Embrace of Hades

**Author's Note:**

> To the song [Pluto](http://natcat5.tumblr.com/post/94592670614) by Sleeping At Last. (If it doesn't play on the blog just open it in view)

He was the middle child.

This is important.

\--

The day Laura stopped keeping her hair in two braids was the day she stopped getting him into headlocks and knuckling his head until he cried out in submission. When he looked at her with wary confusion, wondering why his sarcastic remark wasn’t resulting in his arm being twisted behind his back, she had merely given him a look, eyes, for the first time, unreadable, and said ‘That’s not how an Alpha should treat their pack.’

Then she’d turned from him, dark hair moving in a wave, instead of the two thick ropes he was used to.

He heard it as ‘now that I’m confirmed for next Alpha I’m too good to mess around with you’, and left to go sulk in his room. Uncle Peter told him this would happen. Uncle Peter knows all about bossy big sister Alphas, after all.

\--

Derek worried about things, but he wasn’t an anxious boy. Things didn’t begin to concern him until they were just about to happen. Then worry and panic consumed him, leaving him erratic, desperate for answers, for salvation, for guidance. He was easily soothed, but left to his own devices, he quickly spiraled into a sea of bad decisions brought about by a feeling of impending doom.

The entire family knew it too, and they’d watch for his tells, when he was younger. Watch for the signs that said something was beginning to seriously concern him. and then they had, at most, six hours to take care of the problem before he went into full meltdown mode.

The grace period lengthened, as he grew. The time between first contact with the object of concern and full meltdown stretched to a day, than a few days, and by the time he was a teenager, it was at just over a week.

Now, panic onsets almost immediately. If there’s something concerning, something worrying him, he is filled with an urgent, all-consuming desire to deal with it _immediately._ Carefully thought out plans are luxuries he doesn’t have. Because if you wait, if you stop to think things through, it’s too late. It’s always too late.

(he had a feeling about Kate, but he waited, he waited because jumping to conclusions is bad, his mother said)

(he was nervous when he didn’t hear back from Laura immediately, but he waited, because he trusted her, and they all used to tease him, always teased him about how much he worried)

(he doesn't wait anymore)

(he acts)

(and the panic goes away, if he feels blood on his claws, if he can feel that he’s physically done something to protect himself, protect his pack)

(he doesn’t wait anymore)

\--

The problem with being really and truly alone is that there’s no starting point, no point of origin. Nothing to build up from. There is no one to bounce ideas off of, no one to rein him in, urge him forward, and no one to look at things from a different perspective, no one to tell him if he’s being stupid, if he’s being obstinate, or if he’s being too trusting, yet again.

He was a good Beta, he likes to think. He listened to Laura. He followed her lead wherever they went, and deferred to her always. Obeyed her stolidly, unquestioningly, around other packs, and let her boss him around, even though she’s never been the bossy type. And probably wouldn’t have minded if Derek tried to make some decisions for himself. But. Well.

His judgment was no longer to be trusted. He worried less when it was Laura he was trusting, and not himself.

Laura dying put a wrench in that, however, and it’s amazing, really amazing. He spent eighteen years never thinking about the possibility that he could lose his _entire family_ and then it happens and six years later he’s still surprised when his older sister turns up dead.

He’s silly, that’s what he is.

He’s silly, and trusting people is next to impossible when he can’t even trust himself.

He’s alone, and there’s no one to tell him what to do with this kid that the rogue Alpha bit. This kid with floppy, juvenile hair and big brown eyes and a face like a stupid lost puppy that just tripped over it’s own oversized paws.

 _We’re brothers now,_ and wouldn’t that be nice? Derek had a younger brother, and two cousins who were like brothers. They’re dead now.

This Scott kid has a crossbow sticking out of his shoulder. So. He’ll probably end up going the same way.

That’s sad. But not as sad as it could be. Because Derek doesn’t trust this Scott kid, who smells like sweat and hormones and adolescence, and that means they aren’t brothers, not really.

But the Alpha is what’s worrying him right now, and he’s fixated on it. Fixated on it in a way that’s making it easy to forget the half of his sister, buried beside the burned out shell of his house. Easy to forget the burned out shell of his uncle, rotting alone in a hospital.

He’s fixated on it, and because he needs to find the Alpha, dig his claws in and take care of the problem himself, he needs this McCall kid.

It’s got absolutely nothing to do with trust.

\--

Laura was never a demanding Alpha, just a determined one. When her eyes turned red, when their pack became two and a half, she became so focused that talking to her was like talking to a wall. Derek, trailing after her with tears in his eyes, asking where she was going, asking why they were leaving Peter, sobbing out apologies even though Laura would have no idea what he was apologize for, and never getting a response.

She didn’t stop, didn’t slow down, until they were on a bus, with a bag full of the stuff she had had in her dorm room at college, and Derek’s bag slung across her other shoulder. A folder full of paperwork in her arms, and steel in her eyes.

She didn’t look at him until they were out of the state, and only then did she turn, take him into her arms, and hug him.

When they reached the pack in Oregon, old family friends, she was all determination again. Strict, business-like, and Derek kept his eyes dry. He knew better than to show weakness in front of other wolves, family ‘friends’ or not.

(he didn’t know better than to show weakness, show secrets, to a hunter, but he’s not thinking about that)

She was his favourite. Not that he didn’t love Cora and Erik, but they were seven years younger than him, and annoying as all hell. They preferred to hang out with their cousin Harrison anyways, who was closer to their age.

But Laura was barely three years older than him, and she’d always been his playmate. When her hair was still in braids or pleats, when she laughed loud and obnoxiously and twisted his arms and farted in his face, and fake wrestled with him, rolling across the forest floor. When they were children.

(she learned to laugh again, after the newness of being the Alpha successor had waned. She was fourteen when they told her, and seventeen when her grin returned. When she realized that she didn’t have to be serious and poker-faced all the time to be a good Alpha. That day, she had whistled and placed a palm on the top of Derek’s head, leaning down on it until he whined.

‘Who said you could grow that much little bro?’ She’d teased, and Derek had blinked, used to serious stares and silence, before breaking out into all the curses newly learned from the boys in his class and attempting to twist away from the resulting chokehold)

Sometimes, when he’s in the forest alone, he swears he can hear her laughter. Hear it echo around the trees, boom across the treetops. He thinks, if he were anyone else, he’d be stronger about it. Stolidly refuse to cry. But his tears have always come easily, because it was so easy for him to slip away, to disappear into the woods. To let out his emotions and be comforted by the fact that no one would come looking for him in a long while.

He let’s his eyelashes get heavy and dewy with tears and is still comforted by the fact that there is no one who will come looking for him. 

\--

The children have multiplied. There are _two_ now.

Three, if he counts the girl. Which he has to, because she’s a problem. A big problem. A problem that he can’t just tear apart with his claws because. Because he can’t do that. She’s innocent. Even if she is- what she is. _Who_ she is.

But mostly, she is just an extension of the Scott kid. An extension of his Scott problem. The other one, with the name that doesn’t make sense, is also an extension of the Scott problem. _Everything_ is an extension of the Scott problem.

Or, maybe it’s more correct to say, everything is an extension of the _Alpha_ problem.

It’s difficult, hunting something by yourself. Wolves are pack animals, and he can see why. There’s no easy way to corner a beast that’s the same size of you, if not bigger, when you’re by yourself. And the biggest problem about Scott, is that he’s a wolf, but he’s not pack.

They’re not brothers. Scott would leave him to die, easily.

Derek, logically, would do the same, theoretically. But Scott’s eyes remind him of his cousins, his Aunt Eleanor’s kids. Both of them boys with big brown eyes, one brunette and one blonde. Luther and Harrison.

Harrison had had a similar personality to Scott too. Dopey but determined. The same stupid smile.

That’s probably why, if it came down to it, he wouldn’t leave Scott to die. Because he reminds him of his cousins, one older than him and one younger. Both too young to have burned to death in a basement.

There’s no other good reason for why he goes out of his way to protect the kid. He’s lost too much to start sticking his neck out for headstrong brats who hate him.

Or maybe it’s the opposite.

Maybe it’s that he’s lost so much, he really doesn’t have anything left to lose.

It’s only depressing because Scott’s tag-a-long, the human boy who reeks of medication and stress and barely contained anger, is so clearly uninvested in his survival. Scott’s friend- Stiles -would leave Derek for dead in a heartbeat, and if Scott didn’t need him to stay in a relationship with his girlfriend, he’d probably let his friend do it.

So it’s sad, that Derek is actively going out of his way to protect them. It’s sad, because they’re not his pack, and have no desire to be.

It only gets sadder, when he finds out who the Alpha is, who killed his big sister, and decides joining with him is better than being alone and left to his own devices for another second. There’s a common enemy, a common threat, and his mother used to say killing should be avoided whenever possible, regardless of the reasons for it, but she’s dead now. She’s dead, and it’s just Derek and Uncle Peter, who killed Laura in a fit of madness. And if Derek doesn’t forgive him for that, he’ll be alone again.

Being alone sucks. All it’s done is get him shot and arrested. There’s a reason he stopped making his own decisions when Laura became Alpha.  

\--

Derek always tended to fly under the radar whenever he wasn’t red-faced and half-wolf in panic.

He was, at the root, an easy child to deal with. He was easily bossed around by his older sister, and quick to bend to his younger siblings wishes. He listened to his mother and tended to agree with his father on default. As a child, he was easy to deal with, the only issues every coming from his bouts of worry and panic. And those were easy to spot coming. Easy to fix. Difficult, he was not.

As a teenager, he grew to resent this fact. The fact that he deferred so easily to his future Alpha, the fact that he listened to his parents without fail. The fact that he could never quite say no to the twins. He resented it, and attempted to build himself up as someone more independent, someone with his own thoughts. His persona at school was easy to craft, smug and self-assured, and it was simple, seeming in control in High School. High School, where the major decisions are small and inconsequential to a werewolf inheriting a family fortune. Inheriting property and a pack. The decisions he made there, classes, clubs, friends, girlfriends, had no true impact on the pack, and thus, did not require deference to his sister or parents. It was freeing, and tempered the resentment that had begun to build. At home he continues to listen to his parents, listen to his sister, and allow his younger siblings to walk all over him. It continues the myth, the image, that he is an easy child, a teenager, to deal with. He is self-contained, not high maintenance, and so, maintenance does not seem to be necessary.

He is not ignored, but it is a near thing.

His Uncle Peter, however, was not part of this. His Uncle Peter noticed him, and stuck to him the way the other members of his family seemed too busy to take the time to do. He is the youngest, older sisters Talia and Eleanor both powerful and proud. Eleanor is human, but she is higher ranked then Peter in the pack, and sometimes Derek gets the feeling it bothers his uncle, just a little.

Peter was the youngest, and Talia was married with kids, and Eleanor was not married but had two children of her own, and Peter knew all about being left largely to his own devices. His age is probably the most unreadable, and Derek doesn’t think he’ll ever know just how old he, and his mother, and his aunt, and his grandmother and granduncle, actually are. It doesn’t really concern him, anyways.

Peter always notices him, and is quick to offer advice, offer counsel, or even just a quick word, a friendly smile. Peter is, quite possibly, his best friend, and Derek’s favourite family member, after Laura. He is perceptive, in a way that Laura once said unsettled their mother, but Derek always found amazing. He’d notice when Derek was beginning to work himself into one of his panics, sometimes before even Derek noticed, and offer solutions to them. Before they even became real problems.

(Paige, he blamed on Peter for a little while. A short short while. Until Peter had pointed out, an unfamiliar sneer to his lips, that it was awfully convenient of his mother; showing up when Paige was already dead. And that maybe, if Derek had been able to ask her to give the bite instead of an undistinguished Alpha from no notable bloodline, Paige would still be alive. Derek shouldn’t be blaming Peter, not when it’s everyone else’s fault, for never paying any attention to him. For always putting him on the back burner.

Derek thinks Peter is insinuating that he should be blaming his mother, but Derek just blames himself, for always depending on other people to solve his problems, his real problems, for him.)

\--

Killing Peter is strangely easy, for Derek. Perhaps because he has become a not-Peter. A Peter-spectre. A monster, wearing his uncle’s face and speaking in his voice. The Alpha, which Derek can separate from the uncle he remembers. The uncle he loved.

It’s after that, after the Alpha that killed her is dead, that Derek allows himself to truly grieve for Laura. He cries, and his chest tightens, and it’s scary, the way the flood of emotion makes his vision flash red, makes his voice lengthen into a howl. He feels more wolf, like this. Less of a man.

Instinct, he thinks, is a very good tool. A very good key. As a human, he makes bad decisions. This is a fact. He has made a series of bad decisions and there is no one in his family left alive except for himself. But wolves run on instinct, and instinct is what keeps them alive. Instinct is what’s going to keep him alive in the oncoming shitstorm that is going to follow the death of Kate Argent.

So he runs on instinct, and instinct tells him to form a pack and train them, to combat the flood of hunters into his territory. Instinct tells him to try and get Scott on his side, to build numbers, to be stronger. Instinct tells him to destroy the kanima immediately, to get rid of any and all threats, regardless of who the lizard is when it’s not a lizard. Instinct drives him when he’s an Alpha, and he thinks, he thinks he might be okay. Scott, Scott says he’ll come to him, be in his pack. They know who the kanima is, even if they haven’t stopped him yet, and everything, everything is better. Everything is better. Instinct works.

Until it doesn’t.

Surprisingly, Peter coming back from the dead is the least painful thing that happens to him. He missed him, his uncle. The pre-version fire at least. And if this is a second chance, maybe it is for Derek too. To not be the only one left in his family alive, anymore. Maybe the resurrection fixed whatever was burnt out in the fire. His uncle seems less murderous, at the very least.

Peter comes back, and somehow that hurts less than all of the people who leave.

Scott, it turns out, was just using him, was not in fact, truly in his pack. Never was never will be. Erica and Boyd find him lacking as an Alpha, too rough maybe, too demanding. Whatever reason, they leave. Isaac stays, but not with Derek. He stays with Scott really. Scott and his pack of humans.

 _Trust,_ Derek thinks with a sneer, when the kanima is Jackson again and Gerard is dealt with and Erica and Boyd are gone and there’s nothing to do but go home to his abandoned railway car.

He knew there was a reason he didn’t do that anymore.

\--

His self-assured, independent persona really took hold when he met Kate Argent. Because with it, with her, he felt like himself, but more. He felt less like he was playing make believe with his own personality, and more like he was actually growing, actually become a stronger person, capable of managing himself. He felt strong with Kate, felt in control in a way he didn’t at home. Here was something he was deciding for himself. A girl, a _woman_ that he liked. And he wasn’t asking for advice from Laura, from his mother, or even from Uncle Peter. He liked her, and she liked him, and she made him feel more confident, less of the submissive middle child, and more of the wolf he was growing to be. He felt grown up, adult, and happy. Happy with himself.

He thought that maybe, maybe, if Kate would finally let him introduce her to his parents, if he could bring her home, he could bring that part of him home too. That she’d help him find the strength to be that confident around his family, to really make this new person he was crafting for himself his own.

She burns his house down, with his family inside. And his mother dies, and his father dies, and the babies Cora and Erik die, and his Aunt Eleanor and cousins Luther and Harrison and Nana Maria and Great-uncle Marv all die.

He doesn’t know who to be, after that. He struggles. It’s easiest to just settle on being Laura’s Beta. Listening to her. Doing what she says and trusting in her ability to keep them both alive.

Then Laura dies, and he just.

He doesn’t know who to be.

He wraps himself in anger, in distrust, because that’s easy. That’s easy. And it’s simple to pretend he knows what he’s doing, hunting her killer. He walks confidently, like he knows where he’s going, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t.

He’s just trying to take care of the problem before he reaches full meltdown mode. There’s no one to do it for him, anymore.

\--

 _Trust,_ he thinks brokenly, Erica’s disfigured body in his hands.

 _Trust,_ he thinks, devastated, Boyd’s empty body in his hands.

 _Trust,_ he thinks emptily, Jennifer’s enraged, hate-filled face in front of him.

“You shouldn’t trust anyone,” says Cora, who is not the same Cora of Cora-and-Erik. Who is older and colder and angrier. Cora who grew up alone, when she should have grown up a twin.

“I know,” he says, and his voice is a growl that’s familiar to him. It may not be familiar to Cora, because his voice used to be softer, he thinks. But she accepts, accepts the thick coat of battle-worn armour wrapped around him, the same way he’s accepted all of her sharp, jagged edges.

He can’t even be happy about her being with him again, because everyone is dying, everyone is dying all around. The world is tumbling tumbling down again, and he doesn’t know what to do. He has never in his life known what to do.

It’s even harder, when he’s not an Alpha anymore. Because there is no instinct, however much that failed him, to fall back on.

‘Be like Scott’ Isaac says, and Derek wants to sneer, but doesn’t quite have the energy. He is tired, and that is something he has never admitted to himself, or to others.

And because he is himself, he is Derek Hale, who has never made an independent decision that didn’t result in someone’s death, he chooses wrong. He walks forward with Jennifer, and Scott looks so so disappointed, and he doesn’t know when Scott’s approval became something he wanted, something he craved, but he is so tired, and he wants everyone to stop dying.

He does not kill anyone. Jennifer and Deucalion are both defeated without either of them being killed. No one dies, and it’s the best outcome he could have hoped for, seeing as it was partially a product of his decisions.

Scott being there probably helped. Things seem to go right when Scott’s around. He can see why Isaac likes him.

His mother probably would have liked him.

\--

Cora had a colouring book that she carried around religiously. She rarely coloured in the lines, just scribbled over them, or in the blank spaces around them. When she got older, she carried around a notebook instead. _Blackmail,_ she’d say with a toothy grin, before running off tittering.

Erik liked to read more than write. He liked to read and when he was little he used to spend hours brushing through the fur of all his stuffed animals. Tying and readjusting ribbons and bows. He was soft and he knew he was soft and he surrounded himself with soft things. Human and quiet and so, so breakable. Their mother loved him best, Derek is sure.

Their father was a bitten wolf, and could be defensive for it. Their grand-uncle Marv could be callous, careless in his remarks. He’d talk down about bitten wolves without a thought. He always seemed bitter that the Alphahood had passed to Laura and not Luther, who was older than her and also a boy. He disliked the fact that their father, Emery Hale, had Argentinian parents, and did not seem inclined to hide his disdain. Uncle Marv could be cruel, but he was old, and had lived a long time.

Emery Hale, when not on the defensive, was an unabashedly silly man. He is the reason their names rhyme. He was not powerful but he had presence, and he was warm. He liked gummy bears with such an unholy passion that their mother made him limit how many bags he could buy in one month.

His mother disliked clothing. When upstairs, she remained nude more often than not, and gravitated towards garments that were loose, flowy. She sighed despairingly whenever the children grew, whenever it was time to buy new clothes, and it was Aunt Eleanor who took them shopping, more often than not.

Eleanor was hard in a way Talia was not, but she wasn’t cruel for it. She was seasoned, and well-worn, but still kind. Human but possessing the same agelessness as her werewolf siblings. An enigma. She loved reality television, absolutely terrible reality television, and she and Nana Maria would sit and watch it for hours on end. Nana Maria was old, older than all of them, and things were beginning to go, to fade for her. But those reality shows got her animated, got her fists pumping, and even when it was annoying it was familiar and right, hearing them both curse loudly at the television.

Luther was ambitious, but not in the way that would have made Talia or Laura concerned. He wanted to leave. Wanted to try joining another pack. Living another life. He applied for college out of state, and had a row with Uncle Marv about it. He left anyways. That night, of the fire, was the first time he had been home in months. He _adored_ Star Trek.

Harrison was almost always smiling. He had kind eyes. He was young but did not tend to get underfoot. Derek used to give him piggyback rides. He was also human. His wisdom teeth were coming in, early, and his dentist appointment was the next week. He was the youngest, of all of them.

Peter was Peter.

And Laura was Laura.

And, one way or another, they’re all gone now.

\--

 _Trust_ is almost a dirty word to him. It disgusts him, and leaves a foul taste in his mouth. It has betrayed him one too many times, and he’s done with it. He is well and truly done with it.

But there is something about Scott McCall, something genuine and earnest. Something completely different from the boy who turned the police on him, who used him like a nutcracker on Gerard Argent, who refused time and time again to be in his pack and left their forces too fragmented too many times.

There’s something much more solid in his eyes now, and he’s grown, he’s grown in a way that makes Derek feel settled, somewhere inside. And he’s not sure if it’s because Scott’s an Alpha now, and the Beta within Derek is making him want to defer to him automatically. Or if it’s that Derek prefers helping to leading, aiding to taking responsibility. He’s better at it, he thinks. He’s terrible at decision making. But helping Scott make decisions, helping Scott use his senses to retrieve information, to help his friends and protect the town- that feels right.

Trust is a dirty word to Derek Hale, but as things escalate, and the casualties mount, he finds himself trusting Scott McCall. Trusting Scott McCall, even though trust has done nothing but leave Derek brittle and burnt.

But he has so little left now. Cora gone again, Peter not ever really there, Laura’s ghost still so near, that it doesn’t seem like he has anything left to lose. Only his life, really. And what’s that worth, at this point?

He got by in his family pretending that he could take care of himself, but, out of all of them, he was the one who needed the most support. His family did not understand this. He listened to them, and did what they asked, but they misunderstood his complacence as contentment and competence. They didn’t see him at school, around town, not really. He was fine at home, under their thumbs and love and gaze, but they didn’t understand. They didn’t understand. Laura was the Alpha and the twins were the babies and Harrison was even younger and human and Luther was older and wayward. And Derek listened. And Derek stopped worrying himself into panics, it seemed, when he became a teenager. And Derek was the easy child. So, so easily overlooked.

His persona of being independent, and strong, is fake, was fake, has always been and always will be fake. He can stand on his own two feet, but he’d rather stand beside someone else, protecting and supporting each other. He does not want to be the one self-sufficient enough to get by on his own.

He is tired of standing alone.

\--

Laura was the oldest, the Alpha, being groomed by their mother, adored by their father. The twins were the youngest, doe-eyed and easily doted on. Cora, mischievous in the way that could make anyone smile. Erik, gentle and human, breakable and smothered with love and protection as a result. They were cherished, spoiled, hard to say no to. And Derek was the middle child, not an Alpha, and not the beloved youngest. He was average, and it wasn’t terrible, but it did mean that he tended to get overlooked.

This was never a problem until it was.

 _(someone_ should have smelled Kate Argent on him.)

\--

There is no way to stop being alone without placing faith, placing trust, in _someone._ It’s a mandatory trust fall. A necessary leap of faith. And the new pack forming in Beacon Hills, who did not kill the kanima but saved him. Who reasoned with Deucalion instead of slaughtering him. Who incapacitated the Argents without starting a Hunter-Werewolf war. They, they are, they are the best bet he his ever going to get.

He can fling his arms out, falls backwards, and hope to god that someone catches him. Because the worst that can happen is he hits the dirt, and he has already done that many, many times before.

(he is so tired of being alone)

\--

The last thing he sees before he closes his eyes is Kate Argent, and the first thing he sees when he opens them again is Scott McCall.

He remembers some of the stuff in between, when he was still under the spell and without his memories, and what’s important, what’s important from that hellish and embarrassing experience, is that they came.

They _came._

When he ran out in the woods, when he was too late out in town, his family assumed he’d be fine, because he wasn't a reckless boy. He was an easy child to deal with, and he’d be fine.

He is not a boy anymore. He is a man, and he is older than all of them, and he is a born wolf, and anyone would assume that he could manage himself just fine.

Scott McCall went to Mexico for him.

“Are you okay?” asks Scott, still bloody, still bleeding himself, but looking at Derek in something like confusion, like he’s trying to puzzle out what to do, how to help, how to fix everything himself. For a kid who makes so many good decisions, he has that look a lot. Derek could learn a thing or two, he thinks. Maybe he will learn a thing or two. Maybe that’s something he can take time to do, now.

There are people who will look for him if he goes missing, people who do not assume he'll be fine alone, the he'll manage left to his own devices. A hand on his shoulder, steadying him. Eyes watching, concerned, looking straight at him. 

“I’m okay,” says Derek Hale, and for the first time in years, foresees a future in which he means it.

 

**Author's Note:**

> A lot of people headcannoned Derek as the youngest before season 3 aired, because he's just so terrible at everything. I think being a middle child explains his utter terribleness even better. 
> 
> Also Derek's story was supposed to be the third in this series, but I've been at 1200 words for Stiles for like a month and I had a sudden burst of Derek-fueled inspiration yesterday afternoon. So. 5000 words of Derek written over two days. It's super all over the place, but it's a song-inspired ficlet, so whateverrr.


End file.
